The private citizen, beset by partisan appeals for the loan of his Public Opinion, will soon see, perhaps, that these appeals are ...not a compliment to his intelligence, but an imposition on his good nature and an insult to his sense of evidence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

One sticks to an opinion because he prides himself on having come to it on his own, and another because he has taken great pains t...o learn it and is proud to have grasped it: and so both do so out of vanity.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

There are a sort of men whose visagesDo cream and mantle like a standing pond,...And do a willful stillness entertain,With purpose to be dressed in an opinionOf wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,As who should say, "I am Sir Oracle,And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!"LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious, pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without im...pudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

A man's first Care should be to avoid the Reproaches of his own Heart; his next, to escape the Censures of the World: If the last ...interferes with the former, it ought to be entirely neglected; but otherwise, there cannot be a greater Satisfaction to an honest Mind, than to see those Approbations which it gives itself seconded by the Applauses of the Publick: A Man is more sure of his Conduct, when the Verdict which he passes upon his own Behaviour is thus warranted, and confirmed by the Opinion of all that know him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

It is cruel for you to leave your daughter, so full of hope and resolve, to suffer the humiliations of disfranchisement she alread...y feels so keenly, and which she will find more and more galling as she grows into the stronger and grander woman she is sure to be. If it were your son who for any cause was denied his right to have his opinion counted, you would compass sea and land to lift the ban from him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »

Since I know nothing of the merits of poetry, I am not able to pass any opinion upon this, but I can see that "reap" and "deep," "...prayers" and "bears," "ark" and "dark," "true" and "grew" do rhyme, and so I suppose it is a splendid effort, but if you had written it in plain prose, I could have understood it a great deal better and read it a great deal more easily.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »